Have news about HIV? Send press releases, news tips and other announcements to news@poz.com.

May 21, 2008

New York City’s Florent Restaurant, a Home to Many Living With HIV, to Close

Florent restaurant—a staple for many New Yorkers living with HIV, and the site of POZ’s historic 10th anniversary cover shoot (May 2004), for which dozens of people living with HIV posed nude—will close its doors after 23 years on June 29, the New York Times reports (nytimes.com, 5/21).

“The first time I went to Florent I had been out very late at night with some friends and we were looking for somewhere to go for breakfast at about, you know, 3:30 or 4 o’clock in the morning,” said POZ founder Sean Strub in the Times article. “We went down there and it was very dark and we came onto Gansevoort Street and the restaurant was lit up and it looked—it looked almost like a mirage. It felt magical.”

According to the article, the restaurant’s owner, Florent Morellet, paid $1,350 per month in rent when he initially opened the restaurant; it is expected to rise to more than $30,000 a month in upcoming months, Morellet says.

(Note: The POZ team reviews all comments before they are posted. Please do not include either ":" or "@" in your comment. The opinions expressed by people providing comments are theirs alone. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Smart + Strong, which is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by people providing comments.)